Anti-tax activist leads local tea party movement

Ben Cunningham has come a long way. Earlier this decade, he was an outsider learning about how the state’s legislative process really works. But at tea party rallies on tax day yesterday, Cunningham was the recipient of monster bear hugs from conservative state lawmakers like Rep. Susan Lynn, Rep. Debra Maggart and Sen. Jim Tracy.

During tea party rallies in Nashville, Mt. Juliet and Hendersonville, Cunningham recounted for the crowds a story about getting involved during the debate over a state income tax. According to Cunningham, an unnamed House committee chairman called for the vote on a bill and then immediately slammed down his gavel, giving the ayes the vote, before anyone ever really voted.

“I said, ‘I didn’t hear anybody vote,’” Cunningham said.

He tells the crowd this story because his message is one that encourages tea partiers to get involved.

Cunningham was a star among stars at yesterday’s tea party gatherings. His speech, delivered three times over on Thursday, sounds like a stump speech, and Cunningham admits he considered running for public office at one time, choosing instead the role of activist.

Besides the state income tax, Cunningham’s presence has been felt in Nashville where he successfully amended the Metro charter so that voters have final approval over future property tax increases.

Now, Cunningham is applying his passion to the tea party movement. According to Cunningham, the tea party movement is about changing the minds of the electorate and arming people with the tools to get involved.

But one year after the first tea party rally brought crowds of thousands to Nashville-area protests, this year’s events topped out in the hundreds.

Cunningham admitted it would have been nice to get more folks out this year, but he discounted the notion that the attendance was a sign the movement is leveling off.

“We didn’t do as much promoting this year as we did last year,” Cunningham said.

Cunningham also shirks at the stereotypes that tea party supporters lack diversity and are uneducated on the nuances of the issues.

“People are trying to smear us rather than deal with the substance of the issues we’re involved with,” Cunningham said. “It’s easier to dismiss someone if you can say, ‘I’m morally on another plane than them.’”

But, while Cunningham’s tea party speech includes straight facts about how the national deficit has grown, and will continue to grow under President Barack Obama, the politicians who share the stage with him speak in the same vague terms that has earned the tea party movement criticism. At the state capitol protest, none of the lawmakers who delivered speeches were breaking down the nuances of the federal health care bill, but the phrase “government control of our health care” was bandied about multiple times.

Perhaps, that’s why Cunningham’s new focus is on educating people, just as he was himself educated during the income tax debate.

“That’s what this is all about, what is the role of government?” Cunningham said. “I think all of us accept the notion that the most sacred obligation of government is to protect our freedom to live our lives on our own terms. And that’s why all this debt, and intruding on these very personal and intimate health care decisions, people are saying, ‘That’s not the proper role of government.’